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1. Comment - In Portland, Oregon, another city-wide Wi-Fi network bites the dust

   (Feb 23, 2008 - 2:35 PM)

   As I read the articles about the failures of muni wifi, the operators all seem to blame the business model as the reason for failure. That is, you can't provide a service for "free" if there is no way to pay for the installation and maintenance of the network.
   Unfortunately, It may be time to reaxamine the goal of these networks. As laudable as the goal free and ubiquitous broadband is, it is clear that this cannot be reached without some way to generate income to pay for the service. Broadband is a utility service, just like electricity and telephones. Instead of focusing on the "free" aspect, these systems should focus on providing the service at a reduced cost to the users, rather than no cost. In time, as a revenue-generating system grows, it could lower the price of the service to subscribers, thereby increasing availability of broadband to less affluent users, which I presume is an underlying goal of muni wifi builders.